Beautiful campus, strong benefits such as health insurance and retirement

Cons

Salaries are not competitive for staff, supervisor training is lacking, facutly/staff tension is among the highest, HR policies are hard to find/often contradict themselves

Advice to Management

I met many roadblocks at Reed in regards to gender. Women who are direct are seen as aggressive in this largely passive aggressive environment. Salaries were below the market averages - and below similar employers in the city of Portland - and were incredibly difficult to negotiate. Faculty/staff tensions run high as the faculty runs the show in a more public way than some institutions. Students are kind but a bit unaware of the working climate. While it was a great stepping stone, it's not somewhere that I could see myself long-term as it stands now. Increase the presence of women on leadership levels, allow for more open negotiations surrounding pay (huge emphasis on egalitarianism - a smoke and mirrors show), and some departments need to value efficiency and accuracy over the intellectual musings of an academic.

there are opportunities for student employment in student services that can teach some good work skills, wonderful staff serve as great employers, budding alumni network seems to be proving helpful, especially thanks to reed switchboard.

Cons

little to none research opportunities except for a few departments, out of touch and generally lacking career services office (except for your newest edition)

Advice to Management

if you want your students to not spend their 'life beyond reed' regretting their choice to attend and maybe even give money back eventually, continue upgrading the decrepit career services office. then again, essentially every piece of this review from the perspective as a reed college employee contradicts what i believe as a reed college student, so who knows.

Benefits and pay are generous; an annual 1-1.5% cost of living increase is almost always implemented. The location to Portland is wonderful and the grounds are amazing.

Cons

You’ll notice that the most positive reviews come from student employees and faculty/research staff. However, the vast majority of Reed administrative staff would have a different story to tell. The faculty/staff divide here is much worse than in other institutions in my previous 20 years of experience and qualified applicants seeking fulfilling administrative work should definitely look elsewhere. At Reed, your empirical data and years of experience will be ignored in favor of the opinion of veteran (very likely male) faculty members with advanced degrees in completely unrelated fields. Ego and bravado > facts. Supervisors (including, unfortunately, Human Resource staff) and coworkers routinely mistreat each other and the President and Vice Presidents act in self-serving ways without considering the benefit of the institution as a whole. Benevolent sexism is openly practiced by those at the very highest level: leadership routinely praise women but circumvent them on a day to day basis: the men in any given office are asked to head projects they have no experience with, to inform others of changes in institutional priorities, process and procedure, even without the administrative authority to deliver those directives. If you are a male staff member, however, you will enjoy disproportionate conferring of leadership status, title, and pay. Men are often hired at pay grades that exceed their experience and levels of expertise, while female candidates are deemed “not the best fit” or are simply “unimpressive.” Reed’s current focus on hiring a diverse staff and faculty has led to many truly qualified candidates being overlooked, internal candidates completely ignored, and an approach to hiring and promotion that’s ignorant and outdated. (The underlying assumption of course being that the only type of diversity that matters is the type of diversity that you can see). Promoting diversity does not require lowering standards- to do so is an insult to the individual and to the institution. Reed should replace this barbaric simplistic mindset with something meaningful, and focus more on genuinely mentoring internal talent (yes, even the Caucasian females), while working to improve its reputation as an employer so that the institution attracts external talent of all races and backgrounds. Because of the toxic culture and the lack of mature, ethical, informed leadership at the highest levels, individuals generally focus on protecting themselves instead of being fully productive. Capable individuals are at a disadvantage at Reed and are judged harshly when speaking out about unprofessional behavior or calling for more efficient business practices. Self-preservation has become the top priority and most staff members choose to look the other way rather than risk their positions by being truthful. Adopting and promoting “the Reed way,” no matter how ridiculous, is the only way to survive. Before considering a job at Reed College, thoroughly research the President and senior leadership and then do what the faculty and Trustees did not: pay attention to the findings.

Advice to Management

The leadership touts “transparency” but speaking the word over and over does not make it so: the institution is small enough that insider conversations contrary to the stated message eventually come back to the parties involved and the facade wears away quickly.